This invention relates to exploding wires and more particularly relates to chemical reaction chambers having multiple firing exploding wire systems for use in enhancing chemical and/or physical reactions.
Investigations have been made into the use of exploding wires or exploding bridge wires, as they are sometimes called, to enhance certain chemical reactions, see "A Thermal Model of Wire Explosions in Methane", B. Siegel and R. L. Johnson, Proceeding of the Fourth Conference on the Exploding Wire Phenomenon, held at Boston, Mass., Oct. 18-20, 1967.
The results of these investigations are encouraging in that exploding wires possess some truly unique features, such as: the capability of (a) injecting energies in the 10 kilocalories and greater per mole range in sub-microsecond time intervals; (b) providing electrical to chemical conversion efficiencies much superior to those provided by other electrical sources, e.g. corona; and (c) producing energy which, in turn, imparts high velocity to the physical mass of those reactants in contact with the exploding wire.
To understand the basic premise involved in an exploding wire, one only has to consider the common electrical fuse. During normal operations, the current flowing through the fuse is not sufficient to cause a significant voltage drop across the fuse and the fuse therefore has no significant influence upon the overall electrical circuit. However, when the current through the fuse is increased to some value determined by the fuse characteristics, the voltage drop across the fuse becomes sufficient to melt the current conducting element (e.g. wire) in the fuse. This melting process opens up the electrical conduit and current can no longer flow until the fuse is replaced.
The exploding wire concept represents an extreme case of such an electrical fuse. Typically, a bank of electrical capacitors are charged to a high energy and voltage level. The charged bank is discharged, via an appropriate switch, through a series circuit that contains the element, i.e. wire, to be exploded. The current through the exploding wire is many orders of magnitude greater than that necessary to fuse the wire. The extreme resistive heating in the exploding wire causes a near instantaneous vaporization of the wire, itself. An energy balance reveals that the electrical energy stored on the capacitor is converted to useful energy in a variety of ways: (1) the wire is vaporized which requires energy to heat up the wire to its boiling temperature and to provide the latent heats of fusion and vaporization; (2) the wire atoms are given a considerable velocity (kinetic energy) due to the explosion; (3) a shock wave is produced in the surrounding atmosphere of the wire; (4) electromagnetic radiation is given off: e.g. optical, X-ray, infrared, ultraviolet, etc.; and (5) molecular bonds may be broken in the atmosphere around the wire.
As mentioned above, exploding wires of the type discussed have been used experimentally to enhance certain chemical and/or physical reactions. However, as far as it is known, exploding wires of this type have not been used for enhancing such processes on a commercial scale. This is believed to be due in part to the fact that a practical method for fast, repeatable firing of an exploding wire have heretofore been lacking. Since known exploding wires can only be fired once, substantial time must be spent in replacing the wire after each firing, thereby seriously detracting from the apparent advantages that an exploding wire system would otherwise afford to a commercial operation.